Looking Up

I gathered these photos earlier today and just realized I had better do the post because we are off to the doc again early in the morning.

Looking up during the Prosser Balloon Rally

Looking up in London



Looking up inside one of those huge wind turbines

Looking up at the playground.

The preceding photos were gathered from files of the last few years. Those below were done this weekend at Cousin Camp.

Sasha shows his climbing abilities up a tree.

Masha looks as tall as the trees as she stands on a stump in the campsite.

 

The original from which I am creating my header. Looking up into the trees.

 

 

Other headbangers are linked in my sidebar.

Children's Toys -- a headbanger theme

We are empty nesters.

We have been empty nesters for quite a few years. Our youngest child will be 35 this fall.

Our grandchildren all live some distance from us, and because of schedules we are much more likely to visit them than they are to visit us.

I have been retired from teaching for about seven years. I taught first grade for a number of years, but the last several years I had older kids.

Not a lot of toys around our house, so I went looking for the pictures of two summer events from the last few years for some great toy images.  Cousin Camp and Vacation Bible School.

Each summer for quite a few years we have had a camping trip with at least one of our kids and their families. These trips evolved into Cousin Camp, with several of the families coming together in the planning of the event. We always have plenty of  games and toys for the outdoors.

fun with light sticks

lawn checkers

playground toys

simplest toys are often  best

chess game

bubbles



paddle boat

 

Over the last few years we have done Vacation Bible School and guess who has usually been the official photographer. Here also some of the simplest toys are the best.

crayons

parachute games outside

big ball

parachute and big ball inside--it was 100º outside.

hula hoop

sidewalk chalk

 

Pretty good for empty nesters.

Hmmm. I think only one of our headbanger challenge group still has kids at home, so we will see some creative thinking in the submissions this week. You can find their blog links in my sidebar near the top.

Letting Go

I thought of a number of ideas for letting go, the theme Christine gave us for headers this week.

Ryan immediately wrapped himself in his graduation quilt.

 

A picture on my refrigerator is of my oldest grandson whirling in a toddler's dance--I thought of how my daughter and son-in-law have let him go--then, and now--on his own to college.

The waiter at his graduation dinner asked if he was going to live at home or on campus. There was a lengthy pause as he pondered, then finally responded "I didn't know I had the option."

His university requires freshmen to live on campus, but I think his parents might have made that the only option anyway, as he needed the experience. They knew they had to let him go.

 

I need a visual that will fit into the header space, though, so I thought and thought about what I might let go.

 

So I thought about this:

Let it go.

 



and this is what you get.

Headbangers--a small group of online photo crazy friends who challenge weekly with a theme for their headers. You can find the others from their links in my sidebar.

Found Object

Whatever was I thinking when I proposed the theme of "Found Object" for our Header Challenge?

I added it to the list several weeks ago. We usually have something in mind when we think of a theme idea. Something must have suggested it. However, in undoubtedly a serious series of senior moments, I remain clueless.

So I set about finding a found object in the last year's image files. After rejecting a few, I came up with these possibilities.

We found this handrail covered with leaves when we hiked in the fall.

Karen saw a shadow through the restroom window. When she looked outside, she found this.

 

 

We found this window display to be--well--unique.

 

Benjie found this rock on the beach. I put it in my pocket. I still have it there.

 

I think this duck found something blue.

 

And look! Sasha found  a snail at the lake.

 

I hope that my Headbanger friends found some interesting things this week.

Water

Water

 

God called the dry land "the earth,"

and the basin of the water he called "the sea."

God saw how good it was.  Genesis

one of my favorite fountains in Seattle

Knowing that I live in the Pacific Northwest, the impression might be that I live among abundant rainfall and a wealth of water. That is a stereotype of our state.

When it rains, it pours.

It is true that our state contains at least two temperate rain forests, several year-round snow covered peaks, more than 25 glaciers, snow and water skiing, and a variety of other evidences of an abundance of the H2O.

But the truth is, I live in a desert.

 

while as yet there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the LORD God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, Genesis

It almost seems like wherever we go in Washington, we have a view of one of the mountains. Do you see Mt. Adams peeking over the hill in the distance?

 Webster's: 1 a :  arid land with usually sparse vegetation; especially :  such land having a very warm climate and receiving less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of sporadic rainfall annually

Washington has two main ranges of mountains which are oriented from north to south--the Olympics and the Cascades. By the time the moisture coming in from the Pacific has fallen in the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula, on the cities of the Puget Sound, and climbs the Cascades with a dusting or dumping of snow, there is little left for us in the valleys of Eastern Washington. (Eastern Oregon is similar.)

The Header theme that Mac gave us for this week is

Water.

While my home in the Yakima Valley is literally a desert with around ten inches of precipitation falling each year, it is a rich farmland due to irrigation. 

Mt. Adams in the distance beyond the sprinklers

 To enrich the waste and desolate ground

till the desert blooms with verdure?  Job

Grape vines overlook other crops and another set of sprinklers and the Horse Heaven Hills beyond.

 

Seed production in the Mid Columbia (and the sprinkler lines beyond.)

Circle Line Irrigation rig. (and another mountain view in the distance.)

 The computerized circle lines are a great improvement over the hand lines--looks like these are no longer in use.

These were idle in Eastern Oregon, but it WAS February.

These look more like they are getting ready for the season in early May. I like this image simply as a graphic.

 

So where does all this water come from?

but a stream was welling up out of the earth and was watering all the surface of the ground    Genesis

 

I don't have a picture of Grand Coulee Dam, but it is only one, and one of the earliest of the projects of the Bureau of Reclamation that make irrigated agriculture a possibility (and provide many megawatts of hydroelectricity.)

Just at the far edge of the visible water you can see Wanapum Dam on the Columbia.
It is one of a series of dams downstream from Grand Coulee.

What happens when the structure of a dam is compromised?

We took the above picture of the Columbia River when we climbed up to the Wild Horse statues near Vantage a few years ago. If we made the climb today--well, we would definitely not do the hike TODAY as it is 101º F.--desert anyone? Nevertheless, the view from this spot now has much less water, as some months ago the Wanapum Dam was found to have a crack. The water behind the dam was drawn down to relieve the pressure on the structure. The "beach" extends about halfway out into the river. The State Park at the upper right of the photo is closed to protect the environment and prevent people from illegal digging for artifacts. Additional efforts are made to insure the migration of fish.

 

Other dams

Shasta Dam in Northern California (Mt. Shasta in the background) is part of the irrigation system for California's Central Valley. From the water level of Lake Shasta, you can see part of the effects of drought.



Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada border controls the Colorado and provides hydro power for a large area.
Lake Mead, behind it is even lower than Lake Shasta. Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Dam near the Arizona-Utah border is lower still.

 

Back in Washington, water from those series of dams is diverted into canals to serve the various irrigation districts in the Yakima Valley, the MidColumbia, the Wenatchee Valley, etc.


Diversion dams like this one control the irrigation canals.
 

Water

 

There is not much of wild water left. We have done so much to control it. What might have been if we hadn't?

 

Control of the water provides irrigation and hydropower.

 

It provides flood control.

 

It also makes available habitat for wildlife.

 

 Then God said, "Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky." And so it happened:   Genesis

 

It provides abundant recreation.

 

And in some areas provides transportation.

One of the Washington State Ferries approaches the dock in Seattle.

Here in the desert we are not slave to the ferry schedule. When you live on an island in the Puget Sound, you are. Yes, that ferry has just left, it is not just arriving. We waited an hour for the next one to get off the island after visiting a friend.

"May God give to you of the dew of the heavens

And of the fertility of the earth abundance of grain and wine."  Genesis

 

 

Headbanger Challenge--WATER

Visit my Headbanger friends from the links in my sidebar and see what wonderful views of water they have found.